Come Of Age (LP)

The Vaccines

Amoeba Review

10/01/2012

No coming of age here — The Vaccines' second album is more of the same raucous British punk that served them so well on What Did You Expect from the Vaccines? Frontman Justin Young sings of all the things that could inspire him but don’t on “No Hope,” undercutting his own band’s Strokes-style joyous guitar exercise with avid paranoia: “I wish that I was comfortable in my own skin but the whole thing feels like an exercise in trying to be someone I would rather not be.” On the band’s other catchiest song, the Pixies-indebted “Weirdo,” Young sings of so many of his imperfections — being neurotic, insecure, controlling, etc. — that it could sink the song if not for the buoyancy of his band’s skewed surf-rock riffs and Young’s resolute “I’m not a weirdo” refrain. Come of Age can at times feel very “spot the influence,” but it works, given the band’s ease with a hook and Young’s insistence on self-deprecating lyrics over the cocky party-rock mentality this kind of thing could have easily fallen into. That combination of brashness and self-doubt does make Come of Age feel a bit like adolescence, after all.